


a better plan for us

by dizzy



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Charlie Angst, M/M, Phan Angst, So much angst, blink and you'll miss it reference to a suicidal character, but a happy phan ending, extremely brief mentions of dan/zoe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 03:43:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6268186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan and Phil aren’t anything, and Charlie gets a chance to finish his story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a better plan for us

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [так лучше для нас обоих](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14071878) by [silencelikeawhisper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silencelikeawhisper/pseuds/silencelikeawhisper)



"So you and Dan are... done?" Charlie asks, because Charlie has nothing to lose. Phil called him out of the blue. Said he needed a friend. Said coffee was on him. 

Charlie doesn't drink coffee anymore but he's not going to pass up the chance to revisit this old ghost, if for no other reason than to get answers to questions that have plagued him for years. 

If he gets that far, at least. If Phil doesn't up and walk right out. He's taking so long to answer that Charlie begins to wonder if he will. 

"Yeah," he says, finally. He's not looking at Charlie. His eyes are firmly on the table, and he's blinking rapidly. "But I don't want to talk about it. It was - complicated." 

Charlie sips his tea. "Always is, isn't it?" 

* 

Phil's different. 

He's older, of course. Age happens to the best of them. He looks good for it, though. Charlie's just pudgier and hairier than he was six years ago but otherwise unchanged. Phil is everything more, everything better. He's confident and assured. He looks like he's all right living in his own skin now, some of that weird hyperactivity beneath the surface calmed down. 

Phil used to be so unsure. He used to call Charlie up two, three times a week and there’d be something in his voice, something seeking approval and reassurance. Charlie hadn’t known what to do with that back then. He’d felt too unsure himself. He was drawn to confidence and maybe that’s why he walked away from Phil the first time. 

But Phil’s confident now. Charlie wonders how much Dan had to do with that.

He doesn't ask, though. Turns out Charlie's still a chickenshit when it comes to Phil, and he decides about an hour into that first meeting that he'll bite his tongue until it bleeds if it buys him even ten more minutes with this man. 

*

He gets his ten more minutes and ten more beyond that, and it turns into - something. 

Phil’s got rules, though. He’s more confident, sure, but he’s learned how to close himself off. He has this weird way of letting Charlie know when Charlie’s crossed a line that makes Charlie feel about half a meter tall.

So they don't talk about Dan, they don't talk about the past, and they don't talk about YouTube. Seems weird, right? Because that's really all they ever had in common before, outside of puppy love infatuation over a grainy skype connection. 

But it turns out they do have things in common now. They talk about films and television and books and - they always had the same sort of taste in things. Charlie’s heart fills like it's lighter than air the first time Phil comes over and trails his finger over the spines on Charlie's bookshelf, smiling to himself as he mouths the names. 

* 

Phil's different now.

And Charlie’s an idiot. He knows it. He can feel himself making mistakes he's already made so many times before and swore he wouldn't again. But this is Phil, and Phil's _different_. He's spent so long with Phil on this pedestal in his mind, unsure if he wanted to knock him off of it or drop to his knees before it. 

He’s romanticized so much in his mind; he convinced himself what they had the first time around was love, but the word didn’t enter his mind until years later. It was too late then, and he realized there was no going back. Charlie remembers how burned he felt when he lost Phil after dragging it out so many years. It was his own fault, really, but it hurt and he hasn’t forgotten. 

That’s one of those things they don’t talk about. He knows it's not good that Phil pretends the last seven years of his life didn't exist. It’s a weird little dance they’re doing and it can’t last forever. Turns out, it can’t even last a month. 

*

“Avatar?” Charlie holds up the Blu-ray case. They’re trying to figure out what to watch. There’s a pizza on the way. Charlie’s roommate is out. He’s got high hopes for the night. 

But Phil gets this stricken look on his face and in a sickening moment, Charlie understands that those plans aren’t going to amount to anything. He wants to reach out for Phil but Phil shakes his head sharply once. his breath hitches and it _sounds_ like pain, the best vocalization of a feeling Charlie’s likely ever heard. 

He shuts himself in Charlie's bathroom for so long that Charlie slumps to the floor, talking quietly to him through the door. He doesn’t ask Phil for any kind of response. He certainly doesn’t ask for an explanation. He might be a dumbfuck, but he can put two and two together without needing the details. 

Phil’s eyes are red when he comes back out. "Sorry," he says, quietly devastated by whatever's happening in his own head. "I should go." 

"Stay," Charlie asks, just shy of pleading as he pushing himself back up to his feet. He grabs both of Phil's hands, warms the cold and damp skin there, and tugs him away from the hall that'll lead to the front door. "Let me..." 

_Let me wipe your tears away,_ Charlie thinks. Let me replace whatever memories make you sad. Let me have a second chance. Let me be better than he was. 

It’s the first time Charlie’s had to acknowledge to himself how deep in he is. 

* 

He kisses Phil that night. Phil lets him and returns it, but timid, like a man who thinks he’s doing something wrong. 

Charlie doesn’t want to say too much, but he doesn’t want to say nothing at all, either. 

“It’s okay,” Charlie decides. “You’re allowed, you know? If you want. And if you don’t… that’s okay, too.” 

And something about that actually works, to Charlie’s utter shock. 

Phil kisses him back, sighing like a tortured man, but he doesn’t leave. 

*

By the end of the week, he’s done more than kiss Phil. 

It gets better and easier. Whatever weighs Phil down he figures out how to leave at the door, mostly. Charlie meets him halfway by never letting any of his own doubts show through. He does not let himself wonder how he ranks against anyone else. He does not let himself wonder if Phil finds his body attractive. 

It’s not like Charlie doesn’t have his own ghosts. There are men he’s loved longer and harder than he’s loved Phil. 

He reminds himself that Phil is here and Phil is with him and it’s his hair that Phil’s tugging and his mouth around Phil’s cock, though when Phil comes he doesn’t say anyone’s name at all. But that’s okay because it’s _Charlie_ that he sighs wistfully moments later when Charlie moves up the bed to kiss him again. 

*

Post-coital and satisfied in that bone deep, fucked out way, Charlie’s tongue is loosened. He says, “You were like this story in my head that I couldn’t finish.” 

“Yeah?” Phil gives him a bemused smile. 

He’s not nearly as shy as Charlie had expected. That weird dichotomy sneaks up on Charlie sometimes like that, this expectation of the Phil today to act like the Phil in his memory, the one who flushed at Charlie’s appreciation over a shirtless photo. 

This Phil is stretched out naked on his bed, cock soft against his thigh and one arm stretched over his head. He’s pretty like a picture, like a dirty one. The kind he’s pretty sure Phil wouldn’t let him take for real, but maybe if Phil falls asleep… 

One for the memory books and all. Just in case. 

(It’s almost like he knows this won’t last.) 

“Yeah,” Charlie echoes. “Like I had the beginning down and I could see where it was going, and all the bad shit in the middle, but - there wasn’t an ending. Before, it didn’t feel like an ending.” 

“I don’t know what an ending really feels like,” Phil mutters. He rubs his eyes. “Would be nice to.” 

Charlie gets the feeling they’re not having the same conversation and he doesn’t like the thought, so he climbs onto Phil, straddles him, and kisses him until Phil’s gasping. 

*

“I’m not ready for another relationship,” Phil says. 

They’ve had sex three times. Phil’s never stayed all night before and now Charlie’s asking him to, but Phil’s answering a completely different question instead. 

It should hurt, but strangely it doesn’t. Relationships are messy and too easy to fuck up. Charlie’s gunshy and life has been exhausting for both of them in very different ways. Easy is good and if it builds into something - okay. 

Charlie just agrees and voices half the thought. “I’d probably fuck it up anyway. But we’re good, right? We can still...”

Phil laughs and dips his head bashfully. “Yeah, we’re good.”

Phil smiles more now. It’s nice. He’s got a nice smile. It doesn’t matter who made him smile last, because it’s Charlie who is making him smile now. And Charlie’s okay with not dating that smile as long as he still gets to see it every day or two. As long as sometimes he gets to wake up next to it and on the days he doesn’t he still gets to kiss it goodnight. 

“So, you’ll stay?” Charlie asks. “You can buy me breakfast in the morning. Like any friend would after bumfucking his mate.” 

Phil laughs and he stays.

*

Unbidden, one night, “He cheated on me.” 

Charlie runs his Mario Kart character off the road. “What?” 

Phil’s still playing. He’s focused on the screen, mouth set. “He cheated on me. With - with someone we both knew. With a _girl_.”

He says the last word like it’s salt in the wound, a horrible offense. 

 

“Shit.” Charlie has no idea how he’s supposed to react, so he doesn’t at all. He shoots a blue shell at Phil and then elbows him and nods at the screen and that seems to be the right thing to do, because in another few minutes the tension seeps out of Phil when he realizes Charlie’s willing to leave it at that.

He doesn’t stay that night, and Charlie doesn’t push for that either, but it still feels like progress anyway.

*

That night Charlie blows the dust off his Tumblr account and does some digging. It doesn’t take long to pick up on what the froth-mouthed hoards of internet fans surely don’t let Phil forget. There are photos of them, Dan and Zoe Sugg, a couple out to dinner, a few fan encounters. 

_Just friends,_ Zoe tweets. _He helped me through a lot._

Dan says nothing about anything. His twitter hasn’t been updated in a month.

 _Please understand, guys,_ Zoe pleads. If a tweet can sound desperate, this one does. _We’re just friends helping each other out through some life changes._

Charlie makes a whole new Twitter account just to tell her what bullshit that is. 

*

 

Ignorance is bliss. 

It was, at least. He’s had a year long detox from the internet and YouTube but once he breaks the seal for Twitter he binges on everything else. He watches old friends. He watches old enemies. He watches exes and people he never quite made it that far with. 

Dan’s channel is as dead as his Twitter account. Zoe’s is full of banal smiles and rose gold knick-knacks, like nothing’s wrong at all. 

He saves Phil for last, for when his curiosity is otherwise sated. He’s glad, because Phil’s channel is undoubtedly the worst. 

Phil still makes YouTube videos. He’s in a different bedroom now, different knick-knacks littering the shelf in the background. His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and his laugh is hollow. His views are dropping and the comments are never anything but questions about Dan. 

He backtracks a year. He watches them in Japan. He watches them in the book. He watches the way Phil’s eyes crinkle when he smiles at Dan and the warmth in every syllable out of his mouth. 

Charlie knew them. That’s the weird thing about it. Charlie knew them for years, but when he knew them it was all shy smiles and holding hands and sneaking off at parties. He doesn’t know them like this, the shape they settled into as the years went by, like some fucking domestic bit out of an old show on tv. 

He wants to curl up and bawl when he thinks of how Phil doesn’t look like that anymore, not at him or anyone else. 

What do you do when your maybe-not-quite-boyfriend is coming apart at the seams? Apparently, if you’re Charlie, you hit the self-destruct button hard and revel in the distraction of chaos. 

*

“I can’t keep fucking you,” Charlie says. 

They’re out for dinner. It’s not a date. 

Phil looks confused. Confused, but not upset. “What?” 

“I don’t think we should sleep together anymore.” Charlie’s fingers tap against the table and his foot taps against the floor. “Because I don’t think I ever stopped loving you.” 

He’s not sure it’s true, but he’s sure it’s what will stop Phil in his tracks. Charlie’s got a gift for getting to the heart of people in the nastiest of ways. It’s like a superpower he tries not to use these days, but once in awhile it’s useful. 

Phil’s face goes pinched. “Charlie…” 

“And you’re still in love with him.” 

Phil doesn’t deny it. 

“Does he want you back?” 

Pinched and slightly queasy now. “Yeah.” 

“Then listen to him.” 

Pinched, queasy, and… _betrayed_. “He slept with her.” 

“We’re all human. He made a mistake. Does he love her?” 

Is he helping Phil or punishing himself? Charlie’s not really sure. For someone who's gone through his life feeling like he doesn’t deserve whatever bits of happiness he can get his grubby hands on, this feels appropriate. 

“I care about you,” Phil says quietly. “Isn’t this good, what we have now?” 

Charlie’s resolve almost shatters. He nods. “Yeah. And I’m not going anywhere. But you need to talk to him.” 

*

Nothing changes, at first. 

Then he has to pretend he doesn’t see the way Phil gets more texts and turns away to answer them. 

He has to pretend he doesn’t know what’s going on when Phil cancels two dates in a row. He has to pretend he’s not checking Twitter, doesn’t see when Dan and Phil refollow each other. 

The first time he goes to kiss Phil and Phil shies away, he stops pretending. 

“So you and Dan are…” he trails off, not realizing what an echo of barely months ago in the coffee shop what he’s saying is. 

“I don’t know,” Phil admits. “We’re figuring it out.” 

“It’s okay,” Charlie says hesitantly. “If you want to talk about him, I’m cool with it, you know?” 

Phil looks at him in disbelief. If Charlie could project an out of body experience, he’d be doing the same. What is he even doing? He doesn’t know. 

“Okay,” Phil says. 

They put a movie on. 

It’s awkward. Phil is sitting on the other side of the sofa, where before they’d have been in each other’s space. They’ve gotten comfortable like that. 

After Charlie gets up to go take a piss, he sits in the chair instead of the couch. It’s angled toward Phil, closer technically but with a nice safe gulf of floor space between them.

“I’m meeting him for coffee tomorrow,” Phil says. There’s a lull in the movie. “I’m terrified.” 

“Is this the first time you’ve seen him?” 

Phil nods. “Since I found out. Since I walked out.” 

“Wow.” Charlie waits for Phil to go on. He won’t ask. He’s not being considerate. It’s just hard to hear. He offered, and he doesn’t regret that quite yet, but it’s _hard_. 

*

Once the lid is off, Phil wants to talk more. 

Charlie becomes less of what he was to Phil before and more of a therapist. Or maybe, hell, maybe he’s just actually being a friend now. 

They sit cross-legged on Charlie’s floor. Charlie has one of Phil’s hands in his lap, painting his nails a shade of dark blue. He’s going to add sparkle onto one of them, Phil just doesn’t know that yet. If he’s got to listen to all this drama, he’s going to have some fun out of it himself. 

And Phil just has nice hands. They’re nice to touch, even if it’s not in a sexual way. He likes that Phil will let him touch, still. It’s reassuring in a way Charlie can’t ask for out loud. It’s good. 

Phil’s got his head resting back against bottom of the easy chair. 

“Dan’s in a bad place,” Phil says. “I didn’t realize… I don’t know how stubborn I’d have been. How long I’d have ignored him, if you hadn’t made me - it’s fucking terrifying how close I think he was to… I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it. But Charlie- thank you. I’m still so mad at him, but I know I’d be lost if anything really happened to him.” 

Phil hugs him, tight and desperate before he leaves. 

_No one will ever care about me like that,_ Charlie thinks. It’s a double edged sword, because he’ll never have the power to hurt anyone the way Dan hurt Phil and that’s almost a relief. But no one will ever be there to drag him back from the murky edge, and that’s the saddest part of all of this. 

Should it be, though? Charlie wonders at the way he feels once Phil has walked away. Is he going to mourn this like he did before? Is he going to find the tears later? 

Strangely, he doesn’t think so. This isn’t heartbreak. It’s just… a story finished. 

*

Two months later, he helps Phil move back into the flat he shared - and will now share again - with Dan. 

The invitation to help Phil move takes Charlie by surprise, but Phil’s quietly defiant in his asking and Charlie isn’t sure if this is meant to be a token of promise to Charlie that he won’t be forgotten or a punishment for Dan, but either way Charlie enjoys far too much the daggers Dan spends all day shooting him with his eyes. 

He takes an even more intense joy in the one moment Phil leaves to answer a call. 

Charlie turns to look at Dan. He does feel some pity for Dan, but he’s always been a good actor so when he smirks it’s without an ounce of the compassion he might really feel. “You know I fucked him, right?”

Dan looks like he’s going to be ill. “He told me,” he quietly mutters. 

“And you know, if you ever fuck this up again…” Charlie trails off, still just grinning away. 

He’s always been good at being cruel. Maybe it’s because he relates to Dan so much. He knows how to hurt Dan; just say the things that would hurt him if their situations were reversed. Maybe he’ll bring it up to his therapist. She can scold him and he’ll pretend to be contrite, while secretly thinking Dan can handle it because Dan’s walking away with the big prize, after all. 

But right now, Dan looks like he’s going to cry. He still looks that way when Phil walks back in. Phil reads him in a moment and turns to give Charlie an exasperated look. Phil asks, _what did you do?_ without any words and Charlie just shrugs. 

Phil’s own fault, Charlie decides, for inviting him around. Charlie will let himself be used as a statement, but Phil doesn’t get to pick the words. 

When Dan reaches out for Phil’s hand, Phil grasps it readily. Dan should fucking thank him, Charlie thinks. Because now Phil’s going to feel bad for him and go overboard to make up for Charlie’s offense. 

“I’ll see myself out,” Charlie says, raising a hand to wiggle his fingers in a weak goodbye. “Call me later, Phil.” 

Phil doesn’t walk him out. That’s all right, too. Charlie’s used to walking it alone, and he whistles as he goes.

**Author's Note:**

> [read and reblog on tumblr](http://slightlydizzier.tumblr.com/post/141160790794/a-better-plan-for-us)


End file.
